


Live Your Life

by teaandcharcoal



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Post-Pacifist Route, lots of hugs, sans really needs a hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-04-29 01:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5111567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaandcharcoal/pseuds/teaandcharcoal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a long time since Frisk broke the barrier, since they've come to the surface. Longer than it's ever lasted before, and maybe they're finally free. But then... what comes next?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm considering continuing this, depending on a combination of what responses I get and if I keep getting inspired, so if you want to see more, let me know!

The sun is bright. It’s big and bright and kind of forces you to keep a schedule. Every morning as soon as it peeks over the horizon it forces Toriel’s eyes open. The blackout curtains do very little when it has been dark one’s entire life.  


Her partner, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. Of course, time always seemed to mean so little to him. Sans snores softly next to her, his chest expanding and contracting slowly in spite of its emptiness. Perhaps, she muses, it has something to do with the fact that his eyelids are made of bone. She runs her hand along the uneven seam at the top of his head. It’s as close as she can come to brushing her fingers through his non-existent hair. She gives him a quick peck on the forehead and then rises.

If she’s awake, she might as well begin the day. She dons a dressing gown and heads to the kitchen, but by the time she makes it down the hall Sans is already there, sipping at a cup of coffee.

“Hey,” He says.

“Hello to you too,” she replies, opening the refrigerator.  “What would you like for breakfast?”

She doesn’t ask anymore. She’s asked plenty of times before, how he managed to appear and disappear, how he could be in two places at once. He always plays it off with a joke (“It’s easy to get places fast when you have no body to wait for.” “What can I say? I’m short on time!” “You’re like dinner last night, just a little bit sluggish.” Et cetera.)

“We haven’t had quiche in a while.”

“Sans, we had that yesterday.”

“Oh, did we?” He shrugs. “I can never remember.”

“I love you, but I must say, you can be a bit of a bonehead.” She continues to rummage around until she finds the leftover quiche. “Not even a chuckle at that? Ah well.”

She hears a clatter behind her and straightens up.

Sans stands stock-still. His arms hang limp at his sides. The coffee cup is on the floor, its contents slowly spreading across the tile.

He’s not smiling.

“What day is it, Tori?”

“Hmm… Tuesday, I think?”

“No, the date.”

She realizes he’s staring at the calendar. Every evening she crosses off the day, just because days seem to matter so much on the surface and otherwise she loses track.

“Erm… September fifteenth?”

“It…”

Toriel takes a few steps towards him. She raises her hand to touch him, but pauses a few inches away.

“It’s been a year.”

“Oh! That’s right! Isn’t Mettaton throwing some sort of party this afternoon? Ah, we should start baking soon! I’m sure most everyone would appreciate some pie.”

“It’s never lasted this long. Not even close.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I told myself if it lasted this long, I’d accept it, and I-“ He bursts out laughing, covering his face with one hand.

“Sans? Are you alright?” This time she does place a hand on his shoulder.

He looks up at her, tears running down his cheekbones. His smile seems more sincere than she’s ever seen it. “I’m more than alright. I think we’re finally free.”

“We have been for a year, dear.” She runs one hand soothingly down his back. “And we’re not going back any time soon.”

“I know. I really, really know.” He squeezes her tightly. “And now that we’re here I can’t even bring myself to joke about it.”

She leans down to kiss his skull. He tips up to meet her, and his smooth, cool jawbone presses against hers.

“I think maybe this time it’s worth telling you. Why don’t you have a seat? This might take a while, and for once we have all the time in the world.”

And he tells her. He tells her everything. About the resets, about how many lives they’ve lived, about a good few times they’ve died. About all the times he thought it was over, with happy endings or sad ones, but mostly bittersweet ones. About how he eventually gave up on getting an ending and learned to manipulate the time stream. About how he wasn’t good enough at it to save anyone.  

“So every day you’ve thought it really might be the last one.”

“Yeah,” he closes his eyes. “The longest we were ever up here was three months. And then I was back in Snowdin, just after we met for the first time. And I’m the only monster who remembers anything. Frisk and Flowey do to, and they can actually do stuff about it. I’m so weak all I could do but just go along with it.”

“But you still promised me you’d protect Frisk. After all they did, after all you knew they could do.”

“I did. If you were me you couldn’t bring yourself to say no either. It’s just... There’s something about you, Tori. I can’t turn down sweet corn.”

“Well, it’s not as though I can turn down someone cheesy as you either.”

“And in a fucked up kind of way, I can’t even be mad at the kid,” He continues, glancing sidelong out the window. “Frisk always describes it as being like a voice in their head, making them do things they didn’t really want to.  But now they say it’s gone, that it’s been gone for a while. I just wasn’t quite sure I was ready to believe it.”

Toriel reaches over and grabs his hand. His boney fingers are almost always cold, but they’re trembling ever so slightly. “It’s alright, my love,” she says. “If nothing else, even if you can’t be sure, perhaps it’s best to try to enjoy what time we do have.”

“I’m not scared I’ll lose this,” he says. “I don’t think they’ll take it away and now I know if they do I can get it back again. But, Tori, what do we do now?”

“Well, we still have a bit before I need to wake Frisk to get them ready for school. Perhaps a shower would be in order?”

The wheels in his head are visibly turning. Yes, perhaps this is too big for her to work out in one morning, but on the other hand Sans likes the feel of the shower just a bit too much and this may be just the distraction he needs.

“Yeah. I think so. But what then?”

“Well, then I’ll need to actually prepare breakfast. And then we get Frisk to school.”

“I don’t mean for the rest of the day. I mean, what do we do with the rest of our time?”

“That’s the thing, Sans, we can do whatever we want. And perhaps that’s a bit much for now, so perhaps we should focus just day by day.”

“Yeah, day by day.”

She begins to lead him towards the bathroom.

“Hey, Tori?”

“Yes, Sans?”

“You said we can do whatever we want. Does that include whoever we want?”

“Sans!”

“What do you want from me? It’s in my nature to want to bone.”

She can’t help but let out a giggle. Puns, after all, are always a good sign with him.  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a fairly positive reaction to the first bit, so I thought I'd make some more. Hope you enjoy.

Sans stays in the kitchen and watches the minivan pull away. Frisk smiles out the window and waves. He returns the gesture. Maybe they really have changed this time.

Maybe after who knows how long, he can finally start to hope.

As the car turns the corner, he realizes that he has no idea what to do. Papyrus is busy at work today, and he gets angry in the not-fun way when Sans interrupts him too much. Normally at this point he just skips ahead until Toriel and Frisk get home. But he only ever skipped because if he was going to have to do things multiple times why bother with the boring bits? But now… Now it’s looking like he might just get the one shot, maybe he should just try to live it normally.

What do normal people do anyway? Damn, how long has it been since he got to think of himself as a normal person?

Suddenly he feels exhausted. Well, it’s not like he has anything better to do.

He shuffles back to the bedroom, throws his sweatshirt over the chair, kicks his slippers off and hops back into bed.

And now that his head’s in the pillows he’s wide awake, mind racing a million miles per hour. There’s so much that he can really do now! Everyone else ran off to do their surface fun the moment the barrier was broken. But even when he first saw the sun he knew there was no point. There were too many timelines where he stepped out. He knew there would be reset after reset after reset. Maybe some of the other timelines where they’d made it a while he’s gone through and accepted this new life, but Sans can’t remember or imagine what he would have done. Well, lying here isn’t doing him any good.

It takes a moment to convince his limbs, but he eventually pushes himself up and goes to the window. He shoves the thick purple drapes to the side, letting the sun stream in. It still feels so strange on his bones: almost like a warm embrace, like he’s being completely wrapped in Toriel. Oh wow, wouldn’t that be nice. He slides the window open. The air tastes like that first day, still pleasantly warm from summer but starting to get that fall sharpness he honestly kind of liked. You didn’t get that so much in the underground. Well, maybe the ruins smelled like that, but nowhere he’d been.

His hands rest on the sill for a moment and he closes his eyes, taking in the birds and the cicadas. He takes a deep breath and turns away. Maybe that’ll help. He flops down onto the mattress, rearranges the blankets into a comfortable nest, and closes his eyes.

When he opens them again it’s dark. Toriel is curled up beside him, sleeping soundly. Her steady breathing, not quite a snore, fills the room. He feels her moving ever so slightly next to him. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Part of him wants to lie there, but he doesn’t feel like he can. He begrudgingly pushes himself to his feet and wanders over to the living room. He turns on the light, and Frisk is standing in the doorway. If Sans had skin, he would have jumped out of it.

“Gosh, kid, you really scared me.”

Frisk neither says nor signs anything. In fact, they don’t move. Their expression is perfectly blank, bangs casting a shadow over their forehead. Sans takes a few steps closer.

“Hey, what are you doing up anyway? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Frisk looks up, their eyes that familiar, horrifying red. Before Sans can so much as move, Frisk has jumped forward. A knife is buried between two of his ribs.

“Frisk?”

They pull their knife away. “Goodnight, Sans,” they sign.

He falls to the ground, face down on the floor. Blood slowly seeps into the carpet. The world goes dark as his body slowly turns to dust.

All of a sudden he’s lying in a bed. His face is buried in pillows. Shit, of course, of course. This, Sans, this is why you don’t hope. Wait, why is he sweaty? That’s new. He pushes himself up. The sheets are purple and the sun is still shining through the window, though a few hours have passed. Can things be reset less than a day? He can’t remember. Maybe? But everything is still so clear, usually it’s muddled.

Toriel comes into the room “Oh! You’re awake! I was about to wake you up. Oh! Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just a bad dream. I think.”

“Is it about the time thing?” She sits on the side of the bed and he leans against her bosom.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, we’re leaving in half an hour for the party. So you’ll have enough time to do whatever you need to do. Erm, perhaps take another shower.”

“Right, okay. I’ll do that.”

He gets up, pulling away from her warm embrace. He pulls a new shirt and pair of shorts out of the dresser (Why does he even bother? all of his clothes are the same. But Tori would notice, and she would care) and trudges back to the bathroom. He sets the temperature as high and possible and steps in. It always bothers Toriel how much he likes it, but he keeps hoping that one of these days it’ll get the last of the chill out of his bones. He knows he should probably be getting the soap and scrubbing himself down, but it’s hard. It shouldn’t be so hard. Whatever, rinsing should be fine. It’s just a little sweat.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Sans? Are you alright? You’ve been in there for twenty minutes. We need to be leaving soon.”

“Hey, it takes a while to get clean. I scrubbed myself to the bone!”

She laughs. “Okay, just hurry and get dressed. I don’t want to be late.”

“Twenty minutes? Seriously?” he mutters.

He dries himself off as quickly as possible and pulls his clothes on. He probably looks like a slob, but what else is new? Anything less and Papyrus might start worrying about him again, and as sweet as it is, Sans doesn’t want him to worry over nothing. Of course, even if it was something he wouldn’t want him to worry. Pap deserves that kind of happiness, even if Sans isn’t entirely sure he does.

The two of them are waiting in the living room. Toriel’s in one of her nicest dresses and it looks like she got Frisk to dress up too, they’ve got a neat button down and new slacks. It occurs suddenly to Sans how much the kid has actually grown this past year.

“Aw, shucks, why didn’t you tell me it was so formal? I’m not suited for it at all.”

“Sans,” Frisk signs, “we both know you’d have to be awfully pressed to find something nice.”

“Tori, do you see the hands on this kid? What are you teaching them in school?”

“Mostly reading and writing. They must have learned it in their sordid past.”

“We both know the kid doesn’t have skeletons in their closet, at least not since the last time Papyrus came to sleep over.”

Something flashes across Toriel’s face for a moment. Damn, maybe after Sans came clean about the evil timeline things he shouldn’t have made that joke. Too late to take it back now.

“Well, shall we be off?” He offers her his arm.

“Such a gentle-skeleton.”

She takes it, but being an eight-foot goat queen in comparison while he was a less than five-foot skeleton means that she’s kind of just resting her fingers on his elbow. Well, she’s big and gorgeous and he’ll take what silly romantic gestures he can get. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suicide mention in this chapter.

The party is quite lovely, as Toriel expected of Mettaton. Almost every monster seems to have made it. She wishes she had gotten to know some of them better in the Underground. Certainly she’s become closer to many of her students, but some of the adults…

To be painfully honest, she never got all that used to the public relations bit of being queen. She was always more on the back end, organizing things and taking care of everyone. Besides, at this point if she was focused on being queen she would probably end up lumped together with Asgore, and although things are starting to heal between them it’s still just so awkward.

She sticks with Frisk instead. They’re normally fairly good conversation, but right now they’re trying to help Monster Kid learn sign language (They were so excited when their adult arms really began to grow in, and they wanted to learn to do everything. Their arms are still a bit spindly, but they’re making great strides in penmanship). And so Toriel mostly sits and watches, sipping on some punch and nibbling at a slice of the pie she brought.

Her eyes naturally drift over to Sans. He seems relatively at home. He’s making jokes, pulling some pranks on a few unsuspecting monsters. Even if he’s the most casually dressed of anyone, he certainly has control of the room. But some of it just seems sort of… empty. He’s grinning, of course, but his eyes seem a bit unfocused. That’s not altogether unusual, but he seems even further gone than usual. Shouldn’t he have less to think about at this point?

A few minutes later, he gives the conversation over to Mettaton and comes to lean against the wall next to her. “Why you looking so blue? Usually that’s my job.”

Toriel giggles and reaches down to take his hand, rubbing each one of the phalanges individually. “Oh, you know how it is. So many people.”

“Heh, all those years alone must have ruined this kind of thing for you.”

“Yeah, but how are you holding up?

He shrugs. “I’m happy to see a lot of these guys, if nothing else. World’s gotten a lot bigger and busier.”

“But are you happy here?”

“Hey look, Frisk has Monster Kid on their shoulders. They’re towering over Asgore.”

“Sans…”

He sighs. “To be honest with you, babe, I could take it or leave it. But if the kid’s having fun, it’s worth sticking around to me.”

“Do you want to maybe have a talk later? When we get home?”

“Sure, sounds good.”

She’s not entirely sure she believes him.

However, it’s not like he can really get away from her. She doesn’t want to bring things up in front of other people, since since she knows he’ll never open up that way. Perhaps he would have been able to talk about it in front of Frisk, but she doesn’t want to risk making him close off for good. But once they were at home, he couldn’t escape easily, and the cover of darkness always makes it easier to talk about things closer to one’s heart.

Sans is generally fairly quick to get to bed. His daily clothes are perfectly acceptable pajamas, after all, but Toriel always takes the time to carefully comb her fur. Sometimes Sans just goes to sleep, but this night he just watches her. Sometimes she still feels a bit awkward about it, to be quite honest, usually when Sans isn’t talking. Somehow even crude humor makes her feel a bit less naked, but him just looking at her without blinking… She isn’t entirely sure if it’s hot or awkward, but it makes her feel so flustered. Once she’s covered, they’re back on even ground and she feels much more at ease. He pulls back the covers, giving her room to slide into bed beside him.

His bones are a bit cool to start off, but he quickly takes up some of Toriel’s body heat. He nuzzles against her, smooth and firm against her soft wooly body. Does it feel nice, she wonders, to fill up with heat like that? She pets the back of his skull, scratching just above where his highest vertebra attaches. Her reward is a soft hum, and tension begins to flow out of Sans’s body.

“So,” she says softly, “is there anything you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Your boobs are amazing and I never want to move.” His voice is slightly muffled.

“I mean other than that,” but she can’t help but smile at the complement.

“Not really. I guess I’m just thinking a lot.” He looks up, the only light in the room comes from the pinpricks of his pupils, a soft white tinged ever so slightly blue. “I’m sorry I’m being weird. I’ll snap out of it eventually.”

“Sans… you don’t need to hide from me. I love you.”

He gives a sharp inhale, half gasp and half sob.

“Sans?”

She places one paw gently on his skull and he looks up at her. With a deep breath he begins to speak.

“I used to live because I had no choice. No matter what I did, no matter what I said, it made no difference. I’d wake up one day and it would all be reset..” Tears begin falling from his eyes, and for the first time she sees him frown. “I killed myself, Tori. I killed myself trying to get out of the hell of that endless repetition and nothing happened. It’s been so long, so long, since I felt like anything really mattered. Any moment I would wake up and suddenly all the details would bleed away like it was some sort of fucked up dream or nightmare.  I couldn’t get much joy out of anything, because it was all so damn predictable. But now everything is new. Now I have freedom and every one of my actions has real consequences. I should be happy. I should be completely fucking elated, but I’m not.” He looks up at her, his eyes pleading. When he speaks again his voice breaks “I’m scared.”

For a moment she can’t do anything but look at him, eyes wide, jaw slightly open. What could she say to that? What could anyone say to that? So she does the next best thing, she embraces him, holding him tight against her chest. Bony fingers grip at the front of her dress and he sobs.


End file.
